Collaboration aims for systems-level SoC design

Synopsys and Virtio are collaborating on a comprehensive electronic system level (ESL) solution that connects hardware and software development flows for leading SoC platforms.

Synopsys and Virtio are collaborating on a comprehensive electronic system level (ESL) solution that connects hardware and software development flows for leading SoC platforms.

Under the collaboration, Virtio and Synopsys will integrate Virtio's high-speed software models for advanced SoC platforms, including models for popular embedded processors, with Synopsys' best-in-class, system-to-RTL verification solutions in the Discovery verification platform.

This integrated, ESL verification solution is unique in that it will enable the concurrent development and verification of hardware and software throughout the design cycle, resulting in significantly faster releases of platform-based SoC products.

The parties also revealed that Synopsys has made an equity investment in Virtio.

"Up to this point, architecture models and pre-silicon software platform models have been developed independently from each other", said Paul Werp, Director of Marketing, Cellular Systems Software at Texas Instruments.

"The Virtio-Synopsys collaboration will help ensure shortened, predictable design cycles and help us deliver trusted, pre-silicon software development models to our customers six to nine months earlier".

Virtio's virtual platform software models provide engineers with high-speed, pre-silicon software execution environments that allow them to develop SoC-related software before hardware is available.

The integration of Virtio's virtual platforms with the Synopsys System Studio system-level design environment will enable engineers to concurrently develop and verify SoC software and hardware, with the confidence that the software is fully compatible with the final hardware.

The integration of System Studio with the Synopsys VCS RTL verification solution and the Vera testbench automation tool provides a unified system-to-RTL verification environment that combined with Virtio's solution will ensure that virtual software platform models, architecture models, and RTL models stay mutually consistent.

The result will be a predictable, concurrent hardware and software development flow that substantially reduces the product design cycle and lowers project risk.

"We have been working very closely with major SoC platform providers to move software development up in the design process", said Shay Ben-Chorin, CEO at Virtio.

"This collaboration provides the critical integration between Virtio's pre-silicon software development environment and Synopsys' comprehensive system-to-RTL verification solution, ensuring consistency between the hardware and software representation for a specific SoC platform".

The increasing software content in today's advanced SoC platforms requires a concurrent development flow spanning hardware and software.

The result is the need to start software development and verification well in advance of hardware delivery to ensure the timely availability of software components.

The key challenge is to ensure that an accurate, high-speed software execution environment is available early in the project, and that it stays consistent with the evolving architecture and hardware design during the course of the development process.

"SoC embedded software development is becoming a critical factor for the timely availability of our customers' products", said Manoj Gandhi, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Verification Group at Synopsys.

"Our collaboration with Virtio addresses our customers' need for a concurrent software and hardware development flow".

"We have invested in Virtio because of its impressive technology, SoC platform partners, its leading customers, and our ongoing commitment to providing our customers with comprehensive SoC design and verification solutions".

The integrated Synopsys-Virtio solution will be available for early customers in the third quarter of calendar 2004.

General availability will begin in the fourth quarter of calendar 2004.

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